This piece was reprinted by OpEd News with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
"At that time, after 1965, most of the educated people of the city were either killed or arrested, without any clear charges" sometimes everything was blurry: we never knew precisely what was happening in Jakarta, everything was just a rumor" There is not one single book or reference about the km 27, where the mass killings took place, or about the killings in Pararapak village" Also, in the libraries, we never saw anything resembling the master plan of the city--
Once she found out what the purpose of our visit was, and once she saw my name card, she backpedaled:
"Do not use my name, you hear me? If you do, I will sue you!"
*
The village next to the Km 27 (from Palangkaraya) is called Marang. I film illegal gold mining boats or platforms, floating on the river. There is no cover, no fear of getting caught while ruining the environment, illegally.
Misery is everywhere.
Again, nobody knows anything. People are openly laughing in our faces, when we ask about the mass killings and the mass graves.
Finally, an old lady, Ms. Aminah opens the door of her wooden house and speaks about those terrible events of the 1965 coup. It is as if she was waiting for us. She came to the door, listened to our introduction and question, and began speaking:
"During those times I was still a teenager. I only heard old people telling stories through the wordof mouth. We, Marang villagers, did not know what really happened in Palangkaraya, or in Jakarta. We only knew, that people who were registered as the PKI were arrested and killed. I remember at that time our village was fullof fear and obscurity. But here, fortunately, no one was arrested because we had no official members of the PKI."
"In the building called Ureh (Gedung Ureh, in Palangkaraya City) everyone who was suspected of supporting PKI or somehow related to it, was detained. Yes, hundreds of people were detained there, with no adequate facilities. Men and women were forced to be mixed together. Some women were raped, got pregnant. Torture was common. From there, people were brought here, to KM 27, and killed".
How many? "Many, many-- She does not know, precisely. She was too young; she was too scared.
We drive to Km 27. There is a river, a 'secondary forest'. Silence. Nobody knows. Nobody knows anything here, or in the Pararapak Village. At both places, there is dead silence, periodically interrupted by the badly tuned engines of scooters belonging to the villagers.
We found a creek where thousands of bodies were dumped. Everyone whom we approach is laughing. It is bit like in Oppenheimer's film "Act of Killing".
These used to be Indonesian concentration camps, of which the largest one was located on the Buru Island, where almost all the intellectuals who were not murdered, were detained after the so-called'1965 Events'. Here, outside Palangkaraya, those who are not afraid to speak, call these smaller camps and killing fields "Buru in the rice fields".
The West, which takes full advantage of the mass plunder of Borneo and entire Indonesia, calls this country 'normal', 'democratic' and 'tolerant'.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
